In the article, the author describes a young man, Jack, who worked hard to create his own Tulpa, a fox in his case. She also points out some similarities between creating a Tulpa, and a desire to have a personal relationship with God (or at least the modern church emphasizing that):

"The mere fact that people like Jack find it intuitively possible to have invisible companions who talk back to them supports the claim that the idea of an invisible agent is basic to our psyche. But Jack’s story also makes it clear that experiencing an invisible companion as truly present — especially as an adult — takes work: constant concentration, a state that resembles prayer.

It may seem paradoxical, but this very difficulty may be why evangelical churches emphasize a personal, intimate God."

Jack, a young man I interviewed, decided to make a tulpa when he was in college. He set aside an hour and a half each day for this. [...] Then he visualized a fox (he liked foxes). After four weeks, he started to feel the fox’s presence, and to have feelings he thought were the fox’s.

Finally, after a chemistry exam, he felt that she spoke to him. “I heard, clear as day, ‘Well, how did you do?’ ” he recalled. For a while he was intensely involved with her, and said it felt more wonderful than falling in love with a girl.

I have this suspicion that learning is the creation of neural pathways and eventually they build and you have convinced yourself of something - it appears real. It is the thing that gives you the ability to reach and hold conclusions, but here, as in religion, it is a construct.

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

It actually caused many tulpamancers on the forum to get irritated, apparently animal tulpae are disliked.

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I have this suspicion that learning is the creation of neural pathways and eventually they build and you have convinced yourself of something - it appears real. It is the thing that gives you the ability to reach and hold conclusions, but here, as in religion, it is a construct.

So would you say that it is possible to create neural pathways?

I don't know if that is possible, but if you know i would like to know .

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I am assuming that there are too many betialistic tulpamancers who make the others look bad...

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Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

I have this suspicion that learning is the creation of neural pathways and eventually they build and you have convinced yourself of something - it appears real. It is the thing that gives you the ability to reach and hold conclusions, but here, as in religion, it is a construct.

So it is plausible to make an automated sentient companion as a result of neural pathways?

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No more words so far, mostly have been designing a space ship for a game, she is helpful.

Any one have any possible ideas to experiment with?

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So it is plausible to make an automated sentient companion as a result of neural pathways?

One cannot think sentience into existence just as one cannot think another consciousness into existence. Imagined things cannot experience qualia. A person may perceive an imagined thing to have a consciousness but that does not make it so. People with DID (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) can perceive they have another consciousness residing within them, but these states of consciousness are not new, independent identities- they are simply a manifestation of the original mind.

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

Just had a thought, depending on how "physical" i make Alexis, i am pondering how conflicting she could be in real life.

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As a question, would it be possible to make what "appears" to be sentient and such at the least?

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You have to be clear on what you are doing and what you are not doing. You are creating a delusion, you are not creating anything concrete. If I think of a hippopotamus, it doesn't matter how long I think of one, I will never create a real hippopotamus - it will always be part of my imagination, part of my mind, somewhere in my brain.

A god, a pixie, a tulpa, a dead relative, and invisible friends who talk to you are not real but they are all the same mental phenomenon.

When people suffer serious mental illness, it appears that the neural pathways become misconnected. Imagine you flick the light switch on but the radio comes on instead. So you turn the radio off and the TV starts. Obviously, you think the wiring is at fault. However, let’s say that you open the door and it is night but through the window it is broad daylight. A voice that seems to be in your head tells you to lick the floor – it keeps saying this; it doesn’t stop. You stare at the picture on the wall. The people in the picture are staring back. They are trying to tell you how to stop the voices, but you can’t hear them properly. Suddenly the world is very confusing but, to you, this is your reality. You become worried. You tell someone, they think you're mad. The lights, radio, TV all work and it is daylight. But humans perceive only what the brain tells them that they are perceiving: if it goes wrong then your reality is not anyone else’s reality.

Reality arrives via a healthy brain and is more or less the same for everyone. You can alter it with drugs, like LSD. The neural pathways become disrupted, imagination and reality combine, but the brain, now confused, does not see the same reality as anyone else but to the person who took the drug, it is reality: things that happen can be funny, amazing, or horrible – but they are real.

Now… do you know what “sentient” means? Here’s what the Oxford English Dictionary says:

Quote

Adjective: That feels or is capable of feeling; having the power or function of sensation or of perception by the senses.

Now, in broad terms, to be sentient, as a minimum you have to have a physical body that will respond to stimuli. More usually, you have to have some sort of nervous system and that requires a brain as well as a body. A god, a pixie, a tulpa, a dead relative, and invisible friends who talk to you cannot have a body or a brain, at least not an independent one. So your mind trains itself to have two personalities: there is you, and then there is a god, a pixie, a tulpa, a dead relative, and invisible friends. You treat this personality as if it were another person (although you know it cannot be). The neural pathways form more strongly and the connection is made so that the voices in the head appear.

When the neural pathways become well-established, you may find that the voice in your head will start talking as if it were just another human. It will not be able to know any more than you know; it will not be able to do maths or art better than you, in fact, it will be limited by your own mind - this is how we know that gods are imaginary - they never come up with things we could not have thought of - no god ever invented a cure for anything and no god ever made a scientific discovery... this is because they are limited by the brain of the person who invents them.

There are cases that you will have heard of where gods speak to people, where dead relatives also speak. These people have simply deluded themselves and trained (unconsciously) their neural pathways – for them, it is reality, they think they hear voices and sometimes see these people. But it is a delusion.

What do you think? Is it a good idea to create a delusion?

« Last Edit: November 10, 2013, 02:09:23 PM by Graybeard »

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

Yeah, but one is the entire "This is your lord, so do this shit to not piss him off, then you get afterlife.", but of course, god does not exist.

Then with tulpae its more like "So you want to waste time and make a sentient companion? Then do this shit and stuff", but of course it is also a delusion.

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What I getting at is that one goes "the lord always existed and is the lord"

And the other is "the tulpa will eventually exist, and is...a tulpa"

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Having more concentration issues, and tiredness...But have been working on more physical and design aspects.

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Asked Alexis what she thinks of the sun (its really hot here...), she responded with a skimpy outfit and an awkward pose...

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My daughter used to have two of these. At first they spoke to her in a language that sounded like Spanish. When she was 3 and had a Korean babysitter, the language they spoke to her sounded a lot like Korean. When we drove through the neighborhood, she would point out the house where they lived.

Then, when she was old enough to not need her imaginary friends anymore, they died went to heaven and became angels....

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.

Rule 1: No pooftas. Rule 2: No maltreating the theists, IF, anyone is watching. Rule 3: No pooftas. Rule 4: I do not want to see anyone NOT drinking after light out. Rule 5: No pooftas. Rule 6: There is NO...rule 6.